Alrighty folks, I'm off for about a week. I may stop in, I may not. Don't expect responses to comments or emails for a while. As is my wont, I'll probably be backdating/updating when I get a chance.

You can keep busy by reading my archives. They're all separated by categories. Or you can just click on the little arrows in the monthly and yearly archives on my sidebar and it'll drop down with a list of each post by name.

Hmm. I'm finding these "Blog My Blog" rounds pretty useful for random announcements and whatnot. And of course, for getting to know stuff about all of you too!

The most important information for readers who subscribe by feed or email is that I'm consolidating into a new Feedburner feed. I know many of you are already subscribed to Feedburner, but the new Feedburner is now integrated with Google and for some reason won't transfer over my old feed. The address isn't as intuitive, but hopefully this cuts down on sploggers stealing content off my feeds. I'd rather do that and keep full feeds. Otherwise, I might have to switch to short feeds and I know people hate that. I'll be deleting my old feed, including email subscriptions, when I get back.

Please resubscribe to the new feed and new email subscription so you don't miss a post.

Blondee47 has nominated me for "Best Food Blog" for the Blogger's Choice Award. Thanks Blondee47! I'm so touched. *Sniffle* It's an honor just to be nominated. Seriously, I was so happy to find out that one of my longtime readers thinks so highly of my blog. If you'd like to vote for me, just click on the button on top of my sidebar and it'll take you to the right page. Or you can click here to the Bloggers Choice Award page.

Remember that poll I had everyone take last month? I saved the results so you could see. Don't worry, I've got at least eight Korean BBQ restaurants to post. And there's tons more Vietnamese recipes I still haven't gotten to yet, including lots more kitchen basics and how-to's.

Poll Results on August 11, 2008

Korean BBQ Restaurants

27 (21%)

Malaysian Restaurants

10 (7%)

Take-out Restaurants

16 (12%)

Cafes/Tea Houses and Drink Recipes

12 (9%)

More Vietnamese Recipes

68 (53%)

Kitchen Basics (More Pantry Staples and How To's)

25 (19%)

Garden Tours and Gardening

7 (5%)

Thai Restaurants and Recipes

28 (22%)

Votes so far: 127

Also, if you've noticed, I now have ad space that I'm selling directly on the blog. If you're interested, read advertise for more info. It's prime real estate that will get your business or website noticed at least 75,000 times a month. This might be of special interest to Vietnamese or Southern California businesses since I get a lot of emails from Vietnamese all over the world who are interested in Vietnamese culture and history or from people who are planning trips to Southern California.

And finally, so you can at least talk amongst yourselves while I'm gone, it's time for another round of "Blog My Blog." Click on the Blog My Blog tag if you want to see the previous rounds.

So basically, it works like this:

1) I will ask a question.

2) The first commenter must answer that question and then asks a question for the second commenter. It can be any type of question not just food-related, requiring a short or long answer, fill in the blank, etc.

3) Then second commenter answers that question and poses another question for the third commenter. And so on and so forth. In the event that two people may have answered the previous question and posted their answers at the same time, the next commenter may answer both questions, or choose to answer only one.

4) If you really like this game, feel free to jump back in to answer and ask another question.

Obviously, I won't be responding to each comment on these threads, but hopefully this will provide some nice interactivity between my readers? It'll be fun! I won't close comments to these posts so you can come back and play at any time if you want to continue the thread.

hmmm... best meal in a restaurant. I'd like to share 3: the wagyu beef slices we cook ourselves at the table, this was at Gaudi's. the Foi Gras, pan seared goose liver we had at Top of the Citi and the ultimate meal of all is the fresh live lobster sashimi we had at Dragon Gate Seafood Restaurant. All of these restaurants mentioned are in Manila.

the best city to live in FOR ME is where i am now, Baltimore, MD. it's only 3 hours by train away from New York City, an hour away from DC, a few hours from the mountains and a couple of hours from the beach. everything is within driving distance...

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